Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Four wit­ness­es were called by the State as the tri­al against for­mer ANSA Bank em­ploy­ees and car busi­ness deal­ers, who al­leged­ly de­fraud­ed the bank, be­gan yes­ter­day.

The case against for­mer bank em­ploy­ees Randy Gottsleben and his wife Adri­ana Ram­s­ingh, Dwyane Ro­jas, Zaria Sankar, Navin­dra Ram­bar­ran, Rey­vaan Ram­per­sad, and Ker­ry Ram­sa­roop, along with Cey­lon Mar­ket­ing Lim­it­ed, Joalex Au­to Lim­it­ed, Mi­va Im­port Ex­port Con­sul­tan­cy Lim­it­ed, Arnold Ram­jass T/A Arnold Ram­jass Au­to Me­chan­i­cal and Paint­ing Garage, Di­a­mond Con­cep­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, and It’s A Deal Lim­it­ed, in re­la­tion to se­cur­ing loans be­tween June 2021 and June 2023, came up for hear­ing yes­ter­day.

The tri­al is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue through­out the week be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad. It al­so comes more than 30 months af­ter the ac­cused had their as­sets, to­talling $27 mil­lion, seized.

The State, rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­cil Ian Ben­jamin, called Paul Mout­tet, the As­sis­tant Man­ag­er - Col­lec­tions at ANSA Bank, Gem­ma Khan-By­ron, the Busi­ness An­a­lyst and Con­sul­tant at ANSA Bank, Cur­tis Bowles, Se­nior Sales Man­ag­er at ANSA Mo­tors, and Rishie Rat­tan, a com­pli­ance man­ag­er at ANSA Bank.

Rat­tan, un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, said he un­der­stood that mon­ey laun­der­ing was the mix­ing of il­le­git­i­mate­ly gained mon­ey with le­git­i­mate mon­ey and con­tend­ed that there was no co-min­gling of mon­ey, as far as he could tell in the ac­counts of the ac­cused.

Khan-By­ron, un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, said a new soft­ware sys­tem to track loan ap­pli­ca­tions and oth­er bank­ing in­for­ma­tion was in­tro­duced some­time in 2022/2023, and work­ers need­ed a re­fresh­er course in it.

The group was in­ves­ti­gat­ed af­ter their pur­port­ed il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties were re­vealed by a whistle­blow­er in a let­ter sent to bank di­rec­tor Lar­ry Howai in June 2023.